The temperature is likely to fall tomorrow afternoon as the northeast monsoon strengthens, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday.
Except for showers on the east coast and in mountainous areas in the north, cloudy skies are forecast for most of the north today and tomorrow, while cloudy to sunny skies are forecast for the center and south, the bureau said.
However, the monsoon would strengthen from tomorrow and its influence would be felt until Wednesday, it said.
From tomorrow afternoon to Sunday, highs in north and east are to drop by up to 4°C due to an increase in clouds and humidity, with lows ranging from 17°C to 19°C nationwide, the bureau said.
Isolated showers are forecast in the east until Wednesday and especially in the north, which would be wet and cold throughout the day with lows of 15°C, it said.
Tomorrow, visibility on the west coast and Matsu would be low because of fog, it added.
There has not been a cold wave since winter officially began last month, but the bureau did not exclude the possibility that one would arrive before March.
Winter generally lasts from December to February. The bureau officially defines a cold wave as the temperature in Taipei dropping below 10°C.
The first cold wave in the 1987-to-1988 winter season did not occur until March 7, Weather Forecast Center Director Lu Kuo-chen (呂國臣) said, adding that the bureau would monitor atmospheric developments.
Bureau records show that 2017 was the only year without a cold wave, Lu said.
The lowest temperature recorded in Taipei that year was 10.4°C, just short of the criteria for a cold wave, Lu added.
It is too early to say if a cold wave would occur this year, National Central University adjunct associate professor in atmospheric sciences Daniel Wu (吳德榮) said, adding that it would be easier to predict halfway through next month.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,